On Monday I dragged the whole Hamster team (I have minions now) down to Hampton to see Dr. Science et al. We had to demo the Hamsters, show the techs how to work them, and answer questions about the system from Dr. Sounds, the researcher who is going to be examining the data collected by our trusty Hamsters. Now is probably a good time to reiterate that the Hamsters are microcontrollers and circuit boards that sample and send data to a PC. No animal testing here. I won't say "cruelty free" because of the sheer number of issues that keep cropping up. A Hamster is a cruel master indeed.
In the lab, they pounce on my USB drive which has all the files relating to the project and run around making copies of the files (Second Amendment Guy makes, like, five CDs so everyone has a copy and he has two) and trying to collect all the people who are supposed to see the demo. They find Dr. Science, but we have to wait for Dr. Sounds. Dr. Sounds turns up, but Dr. Science has wandered off. By the time they find him again, Dr. Sounds has gone somewhere and then suddenly it's lunchtime.
In the meantime, we've powered up the Hamsters and started running them. They work! We mess around with the extremely expensive microphones, do some testing with the super-long cables that will be used in the field. We're not used to the nearly flat line of the graphed data (this is real data, not the sine wave input we've been using for development), but it gets a little more exciting when the jet planes take off from the air force base and the microphones have something they can pick up.
The system keeps on working throughout the demo. I am able to answer all the questions they ask. It's great. Every time they say, "Can it do —?" I am able to say, "Yes." This segues into a meeting in which they tell us all the other stuff they want us to add now. I take notes. Half the time I don't know what the heck they're talking about, so I just write it all down and figure I'll find out later.
We also go over to the gantry to see the old system that the Hamsters will be replacing. Problems with the old system include the following.
It's really old.
It's really big.
It's flakey.
It consumes a lot of power.
No one is sure how it works.
If parts break, they can't be replaced because those parts aren't being made anymore.
No one likes this machine.
Being none of all that, the Hamsters were quite the hit. Dr. Sounds has been waiting over twenty years for this system. The techs are overjoyed. Dr. Science is trying to figure out how to use it underwater.
479 words | January 12, 2005 09:59 PM | Rocket science